Full Description
This book is the first comprehensive and systematic introduction to the linguistics of humor. Salvatore Attardo takes a broad approach to the topic, exploring not only theoretical linguistic analyses, but also pragmatic and semantic aspects, conversation and discourse analysis, ethnomethodology, and interactionist and variationist sociolinguistics. The volume begins with chapters that introduce the terminology and conceptual and methodological apparatus, as well as outlining the major theories in the field and examining incongruity and resolution and the semiotics of humor. The second part of the book explores humor competence, with chapters that cover semantic and pragmatic topics, the General Theory of Verbal Humor, and puns and their interpretation. The third part provides an in-depth discussion of the applied linguistics of humor, and examines social context, discourse and conversation analysis, and sociolinguistic aspects. In the final part of the book, the discussion is extended beyond the central field of linguistics, with chapters discussing humor in literature, in translation, and in the classroom.
The volume brings together the multiple strands of current knowledge about humor and linguistics, both theoretical and applied; it assumes no prior background in humor studies, and will be a valuable resource for students from advanced undergraduate level upwards, particularly those coming to linguistics from related disciplines.
Contents
Preface
List of figures and tables
Part I: Humor Studies
1: Humor studies: A few definitions
2: Methodological preliminaries
3: Theories of humor and their levels
4: Incongruity and resolution
5: Semiotics of humor
Part II: Humor Competence
6: The semantics of humor
7: The General Theory of Verbal Humor
8: Pragmatics of humor
9: Verbal humor
Part III: Humor Performance
10: The performance of humor
11: Conversation analysis: Humor in conversation I
12: Discourse analysis: Humor in conversation II
13: Sociolinguistics of humor
Part IV: Applications
14: Humor in literature
15: Humor and translation
16: Humor in the classroom
17: Conclusion
Glossary
References
Index
